West Tisbury Barn Raised for the Ag Society by Amish Work Crew

The crew got an earlier boat than expected last Monday and we scrambled to get lunch ready. They arrived about noon, had ham sandwiches, coleslaw, biscuits, bread and fixingings and plum cake and were on the job by 2:00.  While the women and children got organized in the houses, the men started putting up the uprights on the already prepared foundation.

The lumber had all been pre-cut and drilled, bundled and labeled by the crew in Pennsylvania so it was like watching a huge 3-D jigsaw go together.

This photo is after they were at work a few hours on Monday. You can see the massive framework is well underway. The beams are notched and slotted into the uprights - Tom says it is mortised &pegged, post & beam.

And this is what it looked like just after daylight on Tuesday morning. All the posts are up, the cross beams are being lifted up by the crane operator that works with this crew, and even some siding is on. 

 Here is one of the cross beams coming down.

And this is the barn by Wednesday dusk. The door was hung, windows put in, roof was shingled and all was finished by Thursday lunch (except for the side shingles that will happen in two weeks or so.) Amazing!  

The new barn fits nicely right beside the old animal barn. It is about the same size as the old one and, once the shingles have weathered, it will just blend into the landscape.

Here is a closeup of the inside of another barn built by the same crew.